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Darwin Correspondence Project

From J. V. Carus   13 September 1877

Leipzig

Sept 13. 1877.

My dear Sir,

Although I am afraid that it will be too late for the first edition of your new book on different forms of flowers, yet I give you a short list of some few Errata, as usual.1

p. 36. l.15 dele stop (,) after “plants”.

p. 43. l.3 from bottom (text) read “plants” instead of plant.

p 53. l.8 from bottom (text) read “form” instead of forms.

p. 162. l.12 from bottom read “acts” instead of “is”.

p 196 l.17 (Class III) read “stamens”, not stamen

p 205. Class III read “from own-form mid-length stamens” instead of shortest stamens

“Shorter” would do perhaps; but the terms “longest”, “mid-length” and “shortest” refer to three different definite lengths; and in accordance therewith, there are no shortest stamens in the short-styled form.2

In different places of the book you mention “divisions of the micrometer”. Although you speak mostly of relative lengths or distances, yet I venture to suggest, that it would be perhaps still more clear, if you would give also an absolute measure May I therefore ask you, what these divisions are, 1100ths of an inch or

CD annotations

2.1 p. … stamen 6.1] del ink
7.1 p 205. … stamens 7.2] crossed pencil
8.1 “Shorter” … or 9.4] crossed ink
Top of letter: ‘Victor Carus’ ink

Footnotes

Carus was translating Forms of flowers into German (see letter to J. V. Carus, 17 June [1877] and n. 4); the English edition had been published on 9 July 1877 (Freeman 1977).
In his reply to Carus of 16 September [1877], CD explained that he had failed to correct the heading of the table that was published as ‘Illegitimate Plants raised from Short-styled Parents fertilised with pollen from own-form shortest stamens’ (Forms of flowers p. 205).

Bibliography

Forms of flowers: The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1877.

Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.

Summary

Sends a list of errata in Forms of flowers.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11136
From
Julius Victor Carus
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Leipzig
Source of text
DAR 161: 110
Physical description
AL inc †

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11136,” accessed on 25 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11136.xml

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